The global flywheel energy storage market is projected to reach USD 477.8 million by 2024, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Increasing demand for uninterrupted power supply and growing energy storage industry are expected to fuel the growth of this market. Flywheel systems store and regulate electricity by spinning continuously and hence are used for the majority of the frequency regulation applications. The major difference between photovoltaic solar cells and the flywheel storage systems is that the latter can produce power throughout the day and night.
The data centers segment held the largest share of 16% in terms of applications in 2015. Growing energy storage industry in the U.S. and the European region projected to drive the market. Growing demand for uninterruptible power supply, particularly from the industrial sector, has provided much-needed momentum.

Further key findings from the report suggest

The data centers segment is projected to dominate this industry from 2016 to 2024 and is estimated to reach over USD 65 million by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 7.2%. Continuous, uninterrupted power is a primary requirement for data centers, for which, flywheel energy storage systems are used. Growing commercial workstations, which require a large amount of data to be stored centrally, are driving the market in this application segment. Growing cloud-enabled IT services are expected to propel demand for data centers, thus influencing market growth.

Distributed energy generation is projected to be the fastest growing application segment at a CAGR of 12% from 2016 to 2024. Low cost of power transmission, reduced complexity, and higher efficiency are key characteristics of DEG systems that are preferred over a conventional generation. Also, this method is expected to provide a boost to the use of renewable sources for power generation and reduce the dependency on fossil fuels.

North America was the largest market for flywheel energy storage systems in 2015, with a share of more than 77%. It is projected to witness a steady CAGR from 2016 to 2024. Since this region is home to some of the major IT companies such as Oracle, Cisco Systems, Intel Corp, Google and Microsoft that need storage of large amounts of data centrally, the demand from the data centers segment is projected to increase, by 2024.

Active Power, Amber Kinetics, Inc., Beacon Power, LLC, and Calnetix Technologies, LLC account for the majority of the share in this industry. Other important players include Piller Group GmbH, Powerthru, Power Tree, Temporal Power, and Rotonix USA. Agreements, collaborations, and joint ventures were the most commonly adopted development strategies by these players between 2011 and 2016, in order to consolidate their positions in the industry.